Books That Have Messed Me Up the Most (In a Good Way)

Books and Those Weird Little Things Called Feelings

You ever read a book that just gets inside of your head? A book that, after you are done reading it, you feel differently than you were before you picked it up?

You ever read a book that just changes you? Your life? Your thoughts on the world?

If your answer is "No, good sir, I do believe that I have no idea whereupon what thou art speaking of," then please see items numbered 1-4 on this list and read the hell out of them.

If your answer is "Oh. My. God. Yes, I know exactly what you mean," then tell me what they are! I'm curious because I've read many books that have, in my own words, messed me up, and I'd like to see what they are for other readers. I think it's interesting that certain books can affect people in different ways, and I love to hear the stories of how people were changed after reading one of these.

Here are the books that have affected me the most over the years.

1) Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

This was one of the books that got me into reading the "classics." The story is simple: Books are banned in the future and fireman, instead of putting out fires, burn books that civilians are hiding. These same civilians are encouraged to watch large screen televisions, speed in their vehicles, and constantly enjoy themselves instead of taking time out of their day to slow down and appreciate the world. One of these firemen, Guy Montag, meets a young girl (who has some of the greatest lines in the book) and starts to question his work. 

It's a really simple premise - but it's absolutely beautiful and breathtaking to read.   There are so many quotable lines, including the very first sentence: "It was a pleasure to burn." I always tell anyone that I let borrow this book to highlight, underline, and circle the lines they like the most. Why? I don't really know. I just think it's fantastic to reread the highlighted, underlined, and circled book and find new lines and dialogue that I may not have noticed the first dozen or so times I read the novel.

I don't know why this book spoke to me so much, but I think it had to do with the setting around me while I was reading it for the first time. It was autumn, and I remember reading Fahrenheit 451 out on my deck, smoking a cigarette in the warm autumn sunlight. I felt, for lack of better words, alive after I was done reading it for the first time. It made me recognize things in the world--trees, leaves, roads, clouds--that I didn't pay much attention to before. It made me different, and that's why this is one of the books that I put on the list.

2) House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski

This book... just wow. I'm not going to explain it much because I'd rather you find out what the book is all about for yourself. I will give you one piece of advice, though: Keep with it. It may be complicated and a hard read at times, but I promise it will pay off in the end. 

Or maybe don't read this book at all. 

Because, honestly, it freaked me out, and I have no idea why. I remember reading it late at night, again in the autumn, inside a town home in suburban wonderland Champlin, Minnesota. I was always alone when I was reading this book, and I felt a mixture of terror and intrigue. I would go outside for occasional cigarette breaks and the world looked alive and breathing; it was almost like I was in a hallucinatory state. This book was like an experience. It was terrifying and dazzling at the same time, and this feeling I had while reading it, this feeling that I'm trying so hard (but probably failing) to convey stuck with me for weeks after I was finished with the novel. 

Cigarette breaks in the crisp fall air were a different experience during those months. Things, inanimate objects, seemed to be alive--I felt alive. Everything felt alive after I read House of Leaves.

If this sounds crazy it's because it probably is!

I literally have no explanation for it. 

All I know is that this book affected me in a hugely enormous way and I have no idea why. 

The End (For Now)

Anyways, even writing about those books took me back to the times when I first read them. Pretty crazy huh? I promised that I would include four books on this list but since I wrote so much about these two, I will save the final two books for a later post.

In the meantime, what books have really screwed you up?